PHNOM PENH — Until recently, a minority group in Cambodia whose origins go back prior to the Angkorian era lived in Kampot province. Decimated during the Khmer Rouge regime, the few remaining members of the S’aoch live in the small village of Samrong, about 40 kilometers from Sihanoukville city, said Jean-Michel Filippi. 

But today, no one speaks the S’aoch language and with it the culture, including the legends and sayings that could only be told in that language, has faded away.  

Filippi is a professor of Khmer studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh with a Ph.D. in linguistics and master’s degrees in anthropology. For years, he has been studying Khmer and minority languages in the country. 

As he explained on May 9 during a conference at the SOSORO Museum in Phnom Penh, the S’aoch people have been in Southeast Asia for thousands of years.

In his report on Angkor, the capital of the Khmer Kingdom he visited in late 1296-early 1297, the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan wrote that “families’ slaves are all savages purchased to work as servants…They are only allowed to sit and sleep under the house.” Many of those slaves were S’aoch. 

In 1876, French explorer and public servant Auguste Pavie took the first photos of the S’aoch. Then in 1910, Ademar Leclere, an ethnologist and specialist in Khmer studies, wrote a book on them, Filippi said. 

“King Sisowath [who reigned from 1904 until 1927] had brought some S’aoch to the palace because he had been touched by their poverty,” he said. “But since they were not happy there, he sent them home with gifts.” 

In the 1920s, there were reports that the Thais were capturing them and taking them to Thailand to work as slaves. But it is the Khmer Rouge who virtually put an end to their community. “These people suffered more than others during the Khmer Rouge regime,” Filippi said. Spread throughout the country, sent to work on dykes or outright killed, they would never recover from those years, he said.  

As Filippi explained, the S’aoch have been only one of the many minorities in the country, some of them now consisting of only a few hundred people. 

When he visited the Cardamon mountains recently, the Samrei, whose population now include around 2,000 people who speak their language, asked him whether he could find a way to write the language. Because, their leaders said, as less and less young people speak their language, they would like to write down their prayers so that the younger generations can address the deities properly in their language. 

As they explained, Filippi said, “this takes words spoken clearly, without hesitation, to pronounce the ritual sentences correctly. Because if errors are made, the ceremony will lose its power. And so, it is imperative for the young people in their community to continue to speak the language.”

There are numerous minorities in Cambodia whose origins in the region go back centuries, Filippi said. He hopes that this conference will make the people attending curious to learn more about them.

The SOSORO Museum is located at 19, Street 106, in Phnom Penh. Entrance for the conference is the garden entrance on Street 102. 

For more information: 

Facebook Page: Preah Srey Içanavarman Museum - Sosoro

Phone: 012-901-542 or 010-901-543